The Commercial Excellence Manager is responsible for driving sustainable commercial performance by enabling best-in-class sales execution, pricing discipline, forecasting accuracy, and data-driven decision-making across the South African business. The role partners closely with Sales, Marketing, Finance, and Global Commercial Excellence teams to embed standardized processes while adapting them to local market needs
You will have the responsibility of developing and managing performance management for the South African subsidiary and you will own a range of commercial processes.
The role requires strong financial acumen, project management expertise, and the ability to build and maintain strategic relationships
You will be report to the Head of Finance and Business Support.
Profile
The ideal candidate will support design and implementation of commercial strategies, enhance pricing and margin management, and ensure best-in-class sales processes. Strong analytical skills, experience with Excel, Business Intelligence software and data-driven decision-making skills are essential for success in the role.
You should have a structured approach to work, are structured by nature and can manage many activities and deadlines simultaneously and deliver business results.
You are ambitious yet down to earth, approachable and collaborative, a loyal team player. The ideal candidate should have a dynamic, creative, proactive and open mindset and enjoy exploring new ways of doing things and thrive in a fast-changing environment.
Sales Force Effectiveness
Drive sales force effectiveness through territory design, target setting, and incentive management.
Lead CRM adoption, data quality, and usage to improve customer engagement and productivity.
Monitor call note quality, customer visit reporting and CRM compliance across the sales organisation.
Conduct regular CRM audits and provide corrective actions where required.
Monitor sales representative productivity metrics including days in field, customer coverage, call activity, territory penetration and achievement against sales targets.
Identify underutilisation of sales resources and recommend actions to optimise territory coverage, travel efficiency and customer engagement.
Conduct territory and workload analysis to ensure equitable distribution of accounts, opportunities and travel requirements.
Develop and maintain productivity scorecards for both sales developers (sales representatives) and sales managers.
Monitor and report on sales management effectiveness, including coaching days, co-travel days, one-on-one reviews and performance management activities.
Measure sales manager effectiveness in meeting agreed field coaching targets and maintain high-quality coaching standards across the sales organisation.
Assess the effectiveness of coaching interventions and measure the impact on representative performance and customer engagement.
Drive consistency in sales management practices and field execution across all product portfolios and geographical regions in South Africa.
Forecasting & Performance Management
Manage and support performance management - Performance Review Meetings, Quarterly Regional Meetings, Sales Dashboards
Own the sales forecasting process and improve forecast accuracy.
Analyze trends, risks, and opportunities, providing clear recommendations to leadership.
Lead the annual sales target-setting process, ensuring targets are aligned to business strategy, market potential and territory opportunity.
Design, implement and continuously improve sales incentive schemes that drive the desired commercial behaviours and business outcomes.
Calculate monthly, quarterly and annual sales performance against targets for sales developers, regional sales managers and key account managers.
Commercial Strategy & Execution
Develop new processes, tools or projects to improve commercial performance
Translate global and regional commercial excellence frameworks into actionable local initiatives
Support the development and execution of the South African commercial strategy
Develop and follow-up on business cases
Act as a sparring partner to senior leadership by providing business and sales insights
Pricing & Profitability
Support pricing strategy development in line with global guidelines and local market dynamics
Monitor pricing compliance, discounting, and margin performance
Collaborate with Finance and Marketing to ensure profitable growth
Capability Building
Build commercial excellence capabilities through training, tools, frameworks and best-practice sharing
Professional qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, or related field
3-5 years in a commercial management, business development or similar role
People Leadership Experience - The role has 1 direct report (Business Analyst)
Medical devices, pharmaceuticals, or healthcare industry experience preferred
Strong business acumen and commercial understanding
Strong project management skills across functions and cultures
Excellent numerical skills with an analytical approach and the ability to construct fact-based recommendations and business cases
Fluent in English (written and spoken) - ideally combined with one more language
Highly effective communication and presentation skills
Salesforce experience preferred
Proficient computer skills including MS Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and Business Intelligence software
Additional requirements:
Own transportation and valid driver's license.
This role is office based with a one-day per week work from home allowance.